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Cilium

Using Hubble and Cilium with Rafay MKS based Kubernetes Cluster for Data Centers

In our first blog about Hubble for Cilium, we reviewed a real life example highlighting where traditional monitoring tools fall short. We then looked at how Hubble + Cilium can address these gaps. In the second blog, we discussed how Rafay provides our customers with a a tight, turnkey integration with Cilium for various cluster types (i.e. Rafay MKS for Data Centers and Public Cloud Distributions such as Amazon EKS).

In this get started guide, we will review how a platform engineer can configure, deploy and use Hubble for Cilium on a Rafay MKS Kubernetes cluster operating in a data center (aka on-premises environment). The three high level steps are:

  1. Provision an Upstream Kubernetes Cluster in your data center using Rafay MKS
  2. Configure and Deploy Cilium CNI as a software add-on in a Cluster Blueprint (i.e. Bring Your Own CNI)
  3. Use Hubble to observe network flows

Hubble Intro

Turnkey Integration with Cilium CNI

In the first blog, we discussed how organizations can use Hubble for Cilium for observability. In this blog, we will look at how the Rafay Platform provides a tight, turnkey integration with Cilium making life easy for platform teams. In the next blog, my colleague will describe and showcase how an administrator can configure and enable Hubble on a Rafay MKS based Kubernetes cluster with the Cilium CNI.

Rafay + Cilium

Supercharge Kubernetes Networking Observability using Hubble and Cilium

Networking observability in Kubernetes environments is essential for troubleshooting, security, and performance optimization. Hubble, an observability platform for the Cilium CNI, addresses this challenge by providing real-time insights into network traffic, security policies, and application-layer interactions. Hubble is built on eBPF (Extended Berkeley Packet Filter) and provides deep visibility into packet flows, service-to-service communication, and security enforcement without requiring intrusive packet mirroring or modifications to application code. In a nutshell, Hubble is a fully distributed networking and security observability platform for cloud native workloads.

In this introductory blog about Hubble for Cilium, We will start with a real life example highlighting where traditional monitoring tools fall short. We will then look at how Hubble + Cilium can address these gaps. In the second blog, I will describe how Rafay provides our customers with a a tight, turnkey integration with Cilium for various cluster types (i.e. Rafay MKS for Data Centers and Public Cloud Distributions such as Amazon EKS).

Hubble Intro